Dyson recovered, ready to produce

Published
10:15 pm EDT, Wednesday, October 21, 2009

NEW YORK -- He sat there as a frustrated spectator, near the far end of the Connecticut bench, watching one of the greatest college basketball games ever played in the greatest college basketball venue.

Jerome Dyson wanted nothing more than to tear off his warm-ups and will his teammates on to victory. But that wasn't happening. Just a month earlier, Dyson had undergone surgery on his right knee. Back on February 11, Dyson tore his lateral meniscus against Syracuse. The Huskies won that game, but now, as the clock ticked past the midnight hour, they were in a Big East tournament struggle with the Orangemen that wouldn't end.

One overtime. Two, three, four, five and finally six. And as each incredible moment occurred, as each magical shot happened, and as Madison Square Garden rocked like it never had before, all Jerome Dyson could do was watch.

"I can't tell you how tough that was," the senior guard said Wednesday morning, sitting in the theater adjacent to the World's Most Famous Arena. "Part of me wanted to go out there and try to do as much as I could. Watching as everyone started to come off with foul trouble starting to set in, Kemba (Walker) cramping up, A.J. (Price) starting to cramp up, I just kept thinking, `If I could go out there for five or 10 minutes, it could have been different.'"

It probably would have been. Despite having three major stars in Price, Jeff Adrien and Hasheem Thabeet, it was Dyson who made the Huskies go. Before injuring his knee last season, UConn was 22-1 with him. Without him, they were just 9-4.

Dyson was averaging 13.2 points and had scored in double figures in 18 of the Huskies' first 23 games. He was Jim Calhoun's instant offense. His sparkplug. And when he went down, no one could replace that energy.

Price, Adrien and Thabeet are gone and now Calhoun's finger is pointing directly at his senior guard to lead the way right back to the Final Four.

"He's got to be good every night, he's got to stay healthy, he has to stay focused on the things he needs to stay focused on. This is his final go-around," Calhoun said. "This year, he has to step up."

And Dyson is ready to do exactly that.

"I can't wait. I want to pass all this (preseason) stuff up right now and jump into the season," he said. "I've been waiting a long time to get back out there and I've been working real hard to show people that I haven't gone anywhere."

People in Husky Nation got a taste of what could be during the summer when Dyson played basketball in the Hartford Pro-Am league. He drove to the hoop like the Dyson of old. He developed a pull-up jumper, he played in-your-face defense and put some serious offensive numbers up.

"He's going to light it up," senior forward Stanley Robinson said. "He was averaging like 45 points a game in the pro-am league. This is an automatic plus for us. I'm excited to have Jerome back. He's back "� Man, is he back."

Playing in the pro-am league proved his surgically repaired knee could take the pounding that Calhoun is going to expect from his senior night in and night out. It also proved to Dyson that he could get back to his go-for-broke style of play.

"I feel very comfortable with myself right now. I don't even think about (the knee) when I'm on the floor," Dyson said. "(Coach) wants me to play hard and not shy away from anything. He wants me to be a scorer. It's not going to be tough at all."

Not that it ever was. Dyson averaged 13.8 points as a freshman, 12.5 as a sophomore -- despite missing nine games from a suspension for violating the school's drug policy for the second time -- and was averaging 13-plus before injuring his knee. He's gotten past the suspension, overcome the injury. More importantly, Dyson has grown from both.

"Everything has been a learning experience. You always learn from your mistakes and try to build on them. If you don't learn from them, that's your fault," Dyson said. "You can't better yourself if you don't learn. Everything happens for a reason and I can only move forward and focus on the future and look at all of this as a blessing and just go out and play the best basketball that I can."

And if it's anything like the way he played in the summer, watch out.

"It's going to be a lot of fun having Jerome back. He's a great player for us. He did everything for us last year," Walker said. "It's been a lot of fun in practice so far and I can't imagine what it's going to be like in games."